Front View of Ribs(edited from Corel Presentations 8)
A caution for those of you who dislike thinking about theological issues or
who are bothered by the concept that biological science and theology might
not disagree: you might not want to bother reading the rest of this Web page.

Over the last few years, I have received
several e-mail message asking if the number of ribs is different in men and
women. To correctly respond to these inquiries, I have researched this
issue by looking up this information in several Anatomy and Physiology
textbooks. All agree that, based on medical research (somebody actually
dissected cadavers and counted ribs, somebody actually looked at x-rays and
counted ribs), men and women have the same number of ribs as each other.
For example, one book says:

Twelve pairs of flexible, archlike ribs form the lateral
portions of the thoracic cage. They increase in length from the first to the
seventh and then decrease again from the eighth to the twelfth.
(Weinreb, E. L. 1984. Anatomy and Physiology. Addison Wesley Publ. Co.,
Inc. Menlo Park, CA. p. 345.)

Click on each of these photographs for a larger view.

X-Ray of Female Ribs

X-Ray of Male Ribs

Male Skeleton

Front View of Ribs(edited from Corel Presentations 8)

So from where did the “urban legend” that women have more ribs
come? I don’t know for sure, but here is my guess. As I mentioned on my
History of Science Web page,
back in the Middle Ages, people came up with all sorts of ideas that were
commonly thought to be true and were even put into print, but were
never tested, never verified. For example, someone decided that
that since giraffes had spots, they must result from a cross-breeding
between a leopard and a camel, but no one ever actually did anything to
check and see if this was really true or possible! I recall reading that a
heavily-debated topic back then was the number of teeth that horses have.
Numerous people vehemently insisted on a variety of numbers, and no one
would or could agree with each other, yet no one ever actually opened a
horse’s mouth and counted its teeth! The notion that women have more ribs
than men sounds suspiciously like an idea that could have arisen back then.
(But see, in making that statement, I just did the same thing, right?)

Another possible explanation for the origin of this idea
stems from the old belief in
the inheritance of acquired traits. Before our modern knowledge and
understanding of biology, people used to think that if something (such as
an injury) happened to someone, that acquired trait would be passed on to
that individual’s offspring. Back, just after 1800, Jean Baptiste Lamarck
published a paper which included an example of giraffes stretching their
necks to reach high leaves, with the alleged consequence that their babies
were born with longer necks. However, someone else performed a subsequent
experiment in which
tails were cut off mice, and then the mice were allowed to breed. Even
after 20 generations of mice with chopped-off tails, their babies still
had tails. Additionally, the practice of circumcision was
cited as evidence to refute the idea of inheritance of acquired traits:
despite the many generations of baby boys who have been circumcised,
each and every male descendant of theirs that’s born has a foreskin. We
know that if a young man gets sent off to war and loses a leg, or if
someone has appendicitis and has his/her appendix surgically removed,
the children of such people will still have both legs and an appendix. Thus,
if that’s the rules that were established, by which biological organisms
were meant to function, then the claim that Adam’s offspring had/have a
different number of ribs than he did doesn’t make any sense.

So, why would anyone think that? The notion that women have
an extra set of ribs is probably based on a misinterpretation of some Bible
verses in Genesis. The actual quote is:

Notice what this doesn’t say. It doesn’t say anything
about how many ribs Adam had before or after this “surgery,” and especially
it says nothing, whatsoever, about how many ribs Eve had! Nowhere does it
say that Eve had more ribs than Adam. Who made that assumption without
checking? Wouldn’t it be just as logical to guess (also without checking)
that if she was created “second” that God might have made her with the same
number of ribs as the new, reduced number that Adam now had? Wouldn’t it
really be more logical to guess that God might have created her with the
same number of ribs as Adam just to avoid confusion? Then again, even if
Adam, himself, was missing a rib after his surgery (just like a missing
appendix or amputated leg), wouldn’t it make more sense to expect that his
children would not have a missing rib (just like an appendix or leg)?
Genesis
doesn’t say one way or the other, so the only way to know is to cut open
cadavers and start counting. Who has done that — the theologians or
the biologists? My guess is that, once again, if human misinterpretations
are set aside and if it is remembered that theology looks at “why” while
science looks at “how,” there is no “conflict”
between what the Bible, itself, is saying and what biologists know to be true
about our bodies.

“So the Lord
God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he
took one of the man’s ribs (or took part of the man’s side ) and
closed up the place with flesh.
Then the Lord God made a woman
from the rib (or part ) he had taken out of the man, and he brought
her to the man.”

Unlike people in the Middle Ages, we do science these
days (most of the time). We don’t just guess at how many teeth horses have
or how many ribs people have. We get in there and count them, and then we
know: both men and women have twelve pairs of ribs.

Another reader of this Web page sent me e-mail stating that
(s)he had read some “religious literature” which made the even-more-preposterous
claim that men are lopsided, that they are missing a rib on the left side.
(I’m left wondering, upon what basis the writer of that religious
literature decided it was specifically the left side?)
Would-be theologians who don’t do their “homework,” who don’t have high
standards for scholarly research before publishing, and who, as a result,
publish such misleading information are acting very irresponsibly and only
contribute to the poor reputation that “religion” has among some people in
our society. I would encourage publishing companies to ensure that articles
and books that are submitted for publication are thoroughly peer-reviewed by
recognized experts prior to publication. I would encourage seminaries
to require a minimum of non-majors’ biology, anatomy and physiology, and
non-majors’ physics courses as part of their degree programs (remember that
the clergy you are training will be expected to make hospital visits and
counsel people with marital problems in addition to preaching sermons).

If you’re still not convinced, OK, don’t take my word for it.
Be skeptical — it’s good for you. However, don’t stop there. Go do your own
research and find out for yourself. Go read an anatomy textbook and look at
the pictures. Search the Web for more digitized x-rays and photographs.
Find a local high school or college that has a skeleton sitting in its
biology classroom, and make an appointment to go count ribs. See if that
school offers an anatomy and physiology course in which you could enroll.
Find a local university, nursing school, or medical school that has cadavers,
and find somebody at that school who has some time to spend with you.
Arrange to go there, grab a scalpel, and start counting.